Looking for Chopin and the beauty of his music everywhere - in concert halls, poetry, films, and more. In 2010 we celebrated his 200th birthday with an anthology of 123 poems. Here, we'll follow the music's echoes in the hearts and minds of poets and artists, musicians and listeners... Who knows what we'll find?

Pages

Monday, May 19, 2014

On
April 28-29, 2014, in the elegant palace of the Paris Section of the Polish Academy of Sciences the Second
International Conference “Maria Szymanowska (1789-1831) and her Times” took place.
The conference was organized byElisabeth
Zapolska-Chapelle, the president of the Societe Maria Szymanowska in Paris. Following the pattern created for the first
Conference in 2011, that is, two days of presentations, a mini-recital and an
artistic salon at the end, this meeting of scholars created an opportunity for
a review of the state of research about the life and work of Maria Szymanowska,
in the context of the contemporary culture, including her connections to eminent
artistic personalities from Germany (poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe), Denmark
(sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen) and Poland (historian-writer-politician Julian
Ursyn Niemcewicz, and his sponsor Duchess Maria Czartoryska de Wurttemberg).

Conference Attendees, with Anna Kijas in the foreground.

Participants of the conference came from many countries: the U.S. (Halina
Goldberg, Anna Kijas, and Maja Trochimczyk), Poland (Jerzy Miziołek, Hubert
Kowalski and Adam Gałkowski representing the University of Warsaw, as well as
Irena Poniatowska from the National
Fryderyk Chopin Institute), Germany (Maria Stolarzewicz from the Instytute of
Weimar-Iena), Denmark (Karen Busk Jepsen from the Thorvaldsen Museum), Sweden
(Benjamin Vogel), and France (Piotr Daszkiewicz from the Natural History
Museum, and Jean-Marc Warszawski from
the Musicology Instytute).

The
session was opened by Prof. Zbigniew Kuźnicki, director of the PAN Section in Paris, and the
participants were warmly welcomed by Ms. Zapolska Chapelle, before scholars
ventured into their presentations and discussions in three languages: French,
English and Polish (the latter in discussions only). Two presentations were dedicated to general
stylistic topics: Jean-Marc Warszawski discussed the aesthetic and stylistic
trends in Polish music of Szymanowska’s time and afterwards, while Prof. Irena
Poniatowska presented an analysis of the concept of “salon music” – contrasted
with serious, concert music, that this genre shared only some features with,
being a predecessor of hit songs and popular musics of today. Dr Jerzy Miziołek, the director of the Warsaw
University Museum presented a fascinating panorama of artistic culture of
Warsaw and its surroundings, emphasizing the connections to neo-classical
revival of Roman art, especially those recently discovered in Pompea. After the concert, with great interest, he
studied in the Museum at the Polish Library in Paris a portrait of Maria
Szymanowska painted by Walenty Wańkowicz (the portrait-maker
of Adam Mickiewicz). Posed as a Roman goddess, in a fashionable 19th
century evening gown, but with a little angel holding a book for her, the pianist is
seated in an opulent music room, with a smoking volcano visible through a window. In my
2011 paper, I identified the location of this portrait as Naples, where
Szymanowska traveled in early 1825, after a visit to Rome. In terms of
setting, this portrait is a twin of a portrait of the composer as a Queen of Tones (described by Dr. Benjamin
Vogel), created in Rome by Aleksander Kokular in 1824.

With his broad knowledge of Roman and
classical iconography and the arts of 19th century, Dr. Miziołek
undoubtedly will all a lot to my interpretation of the painting. Such
artistic-scholarly dialogues were at the core of the conference’s activities.

Maja Trochimczyk and Halina Goldberg on the way

to their guest rooms at the Polish Institute in Paris.

Prof.
Goldberg, well known from her studies of reception, milieu, and performative
aspects of Chopin’s music, presented a fragment of a larger project dedicated
to the study of 19th century albums as a medium for preserving and
shaping memory. In the albums of
autographs, music fragments, and poetry collected by Maria Szymanowska and her
daughter Helena Malewska, Prof. Goldberg found examples of music that
illustrates the multilevel connections of albums and memory – the constructs of
half-private and half-public self images, recorded in a intimate, personal voice,
but for posterity, to be seen by others.
She found examples of three aspects of memory – its psychological
aspect, national-patriotic memory, and nostalgic emotional dimensions of memory
and memorabilia found in personal albums.

Dr.
Vogel, specialist in the history of pianos revealed places where this
“memorialization” of the past took place, that is aristocratic and middle-class
salons and parlors where the piano had the place of honor. These pianos took the strangest shapes,
including square, upright, cabinet, and giraffe, but they were always in the
central spot in the home, where meetings focused on performances of songs,
dances, and a variety of miniatures. The piano was once the “heart” of the home
–by now replaced by the multiplicity of electronics connected to omnipresent Wi-Fi. It is a sad testimony to the change of musical culture – from
participatory and performative to passive and receptive – that in the period
that separated the two Szymanowska conferences, the renowned piano maker based
in Paris, Pleyel, went bankrupt. The
demand for pianos is not what it used to be even 50 years ago, let alone in the
19th century where everyone had to have a grand instrument in the
salon and a smaller one in the separate living room for women. Broadly outlined cultural context for the stellar career of Maria Szymanowska was provided in papers by Prof. Adam Galkowski, who discussed famous women of her time, and Dr. Piotr Daszkiewicz who talked about the connections between natural history and the arts in the early 19th century, starting from scientific interests of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle with Dr. Maria Stolarzewicz

In
the next paper, Maria Stolarzewicz discussed the connections of Maria Szymanowska and her sister Kazimera Wolowska with the famed German poet, Johann Wolfgang
von Goethe. This topic was earlier
extensively studied by a New York-based scholar, Anne Swartz, but Stolarzewicz
added a lot to her predecessor’s research, including a handout that featured a
comprehensive collection of excerpts in Goethe’s letters, writings and diaries
with mentions of the great pianist. To bring this poetic-musical friendship closer
to the listeners, at the final Salon, Elizabeth Zapolska Chappelle recited the
poem that Goethe dedicated to Szymanowska, Aussohnung
– with musical accompaniment of Szymanowska’s pieces, in the “melodrama” style
popular in 19th century salons. Stolarzewicz highlighted the many different
aspects of the friendship of the aging poet and the beautiful pianist, and
corrected mistakes made by previous biographers of both in the interpretation
of the nature of this artistic relationship.

Karen Busk-Jepsen of Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen.

At least this friendship was never hidden by either party – something
that surprisingly happened to the relationship of Szymanowska with a Danish
sculptor, Bertel Thorvaldsen. The
prudish and suspicious biographer of the sculptor, Just Mathias Thiele decided
to omit from the artist’s biography and editions of letters all mentions of
Szymanowska’s 15 letters, but also correspondence with two other artistic women
that were close friends with Thorvaldsen: “Zinaïda Volkonskaia (Russian
princess, singer, writer, arranged salons first in Moscow, then Rome), and
Adelgunde Vogt (Danish sculptor, animalière, virtually forgotten)” (cited from an email by Ms. Busk-Jepsen). According
to Karen Busk-Jepsen neither of these women had an affair with the talented
Dane, but Thiele thought otherwise and removed them in order to “purify” and
“sanctify” the national artist of Denmark.
How easy it is to vilify women!
The fact that a romance with anyone was completely out of place in the
life of a virtuous, though divorced, pianist with three children and siblings to support, never
crossed the mind of Mr. Thiele. The
affectionate tone of Szymanowska’s letters indicated an emotional relationship
that was not revealed in the only preserved letter of Thorvaldsen to her. In any case, leaving romances aside, we
should pay more attention to Thorvaldsen's influence on Polish culture.

Jean Marc Warszawski jazzes up a Helena Wolowska's melody.

An important step in this direction was made in the research
of Hubert Kowalski, deputy director of
the Museum of Warsaw University. In his presentation (read by his boss, Dr.
Miziolek), Kowalski discussed the impact of neoclassical style of Thorvaldsen
on the artistic landscape of Warsaw, going far beyond the two known monuments
that beautify the capital: Prince Jozef Poniatowski and Mikolaj Kopernik
(Copernicus). The unveiling of the latter monument was one of the tasks
performed by the then President of the Society of the Friends of Learning,
Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz.

Maja Trochimczyk, Photo by Judyta Nowak.

Niemcewicz was the author of the famous Historical Chants (Śpiewy historyczne”)
- a bestseller of the 19th century, present in every patriotic
Polish home, including the Chopin family salon in Warsaw. This volume and
Szymanowska’s contribution to it was the subject of my presentation,
illustrated by engravings of scenes and
songs from the lives of the kings and heroes published in the original edition
and its subsequent reprints. The author,
poet, journalist and politician and one of his main sponsors, Duchess Maria
Czartoryska de Wurttermberg (Wirtemberska) are fascinating personalities in
Poland’s artistic and musical history, and deserve a lot more attention that
could be bestowed on them in my overview. The reading and singing of chants
that were being assembled for publication took place in Czartoryska’s Azure
Saturdays, literary gatherings in the Czartoryski Azure Palace in Leszno near
Warsaw (1806-1816). The salons provided a venue for meetings of
Warsaw’s literary elite, with Kajetan Kozmian, Maksymilian Fredro, Franciszek
Lessel, Karol Kurpinski, Niemczewicz and Szymanowska as frequent guests. The Czartoryski and Zamoyski families were
among the main sponsors- subscribers to the first edition of the Historical
Chants, also supported by Potocki and Tarnowski magnates, Warsaw school
professors, the cleargy and minor gentry.
In PRL-period histories, the role of aristocracy in the creation of
Polish culture was under-appreciated for obvious ideological reasons. Only
now, 25 years after the fall of the
system we can approach this topic anew, without “socialist” prejudices.

In
“Śpiewy historyczne” the song about hetman
Chodkiewicz was penned by Duchess Chodkiewiczowa, the song about Hetman Zamoyski
was written by Duchess Zofia Zamoyska (nee Czartoryska). Maria Wirtemberska set to music a song
about Stefan Potocki and the whole
project was inspired by a setting of Duma o Stefanie Zolkiewskim by Konstancja
Narbutt, composed thirty years earlier and popular in the nobility’s
salons. The greatest number of songs was
by professional composers Karol Kurpiński (6) and Franciszek Lessel (10 plus a two-voice version
of Bogurodzica). Ewa Talma’s
contribution to the discussion was invaluable as she has shown that the first
edition of 1816 was incomplete. Prof. Irena Poniatowska relayed the information found
by Zofia Chechlinska about the fact that two composers, Cecylia Beydale and
Lessel, were siblings and could not marry, as they had intended to. They were,
apparently, out-of-wedlock children of the adventurous and amorous Maria
Wirtemberska.

These
relationships and others between the various persons in Szymanowska’s
life, as well as archival documents about them could be plotted in an open,
free access website that could be developed, as Anna Kijas proposed in the
closing paper of the conference. A trained librarian as well as musicologist,
Kijas has published a bio-bibliography of Szymanowska that showed some
previously unknown letters of her daughter to an American friend, preserved in
a library in North Carolina.Indeed, it
would be beneficial to have these letters scanned and made public –the letters in Thorvaldsen Museum are already
posted online.

Anna Kijas with Prof. Halina Goldberg

A visit to the Polish Library in Paris, to see the notebooks and
letters of Szymanowska family in the Museum of Adam Mickiewicz provided me with a
proof of the importance of this step for the future of research.The archives, always crowded by researchers,
have amazing resources and I discovered, to my great pleasure the vast scope of
patriotic songs copied by hand for personal use by Szymanowska’s children,
Helena and Romuald.The little hand-made
notebooks, that can fit in the palm of a hand and be used for group singing in
the salon, included hundreds of krakowiaks, mazurs, polonaises, as well as
various versions of the Dabrowski Mazurka, Bogurodzica, and other patriotic
hymns.My study of the history of Polish
anthems will find a follow up in these documents.

While was reviewing the
content of children’s notebooks, Halina Goldberg focused on the famous albums
with composers’ manuscripts, in wonderful leather bindings, made to be kept and
shown. She started her own album, and I had the pleasure of writing a personal
note for her, as well as a silly little collage with a rain poem, inspired by
our wanderings around Paris and a story by Slawomir Mrozek...

Parisian entry in Halina Goldberg's album by Maja Trochimczyk

The
conference was supported by the Paris Station of the Polish Academy of Sciences
that hosted the events, provided excellent audiovisual support and lovely,
French-and-Polish style luncheons and receptions for the scholars. Some of the conference attendees could stay in PAN guest rooms, while the Polish Institute in Paris hosted the rest of the scholars. Air France and KLM offered discounted air flights, and the Polish Library in Paris welcomed
scholars for archival visits.

None of that would have been possible without the
energetic and talented organizer, Ms. Zapolska Chapelle who, in addition to moderating all the sessions and introducing the speakers, delighted the audience with her rendition of all five songs of Szymanowska and fragments of two songs by
others (Paris and Kurpinski) that replaced Szymanowska's versions in the published Niemcewicz edition.
The singer has already issued all of Szymanowska’s songs on a CD (Acte Prealable)
that is a must for all 19th century music scholars, as well as those
studying the biographies and work of Adam Mickiewicz and Fryderyk Chopin. Pianist Małgorzata Kluźniak-Celińska aptly accompanied Ms. Zapolska-Chappelle and performed
solo pieces by Szymanowska at the close of the conference and at the final Salon
– where we heard Goethe’s poem dedicated to Szymanowska, as well as two poems of mine,
along other assorted productions, as the case may be in an impromptu performance, of a dramatically varied artistic quality. Next time, it will be better, we promise.

Elizabeth Zapolska-Chapelle with Małgorzata Kluźniak-Celińska at the piano

and Prof. Zbigniew Kuznicki.

Participants surround Prof. Irena Poniatowska at the end of the conference.

Chopin with Cherries

About Me

As an author of seven scholarly books and hundreds of articles and book chapters, I'm well established in the music history world, with two main specializations: Polish music of the 19th and 20th centuries, and 20th-century contemporary music. A former Poet Laureate of Sunland-Tujunga and current member of Village Poets and the Westside Women Writers, I published over 300 poems in various journals and anthologies. I also wrote five collections of poems and edited two poetry anthologies. A Board Secretary and Communications Director of the Polish American Historical Association, I also belong to the American Musicological Society, and the Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences. As President of Moonrise Press, I published 16 books of poetry and music history. I received fellowships and awards from the Canadian government, Polish government, USC, PAHA, the City and County of Los Angeles, and the American Council of Learned Societies. Most recently, I received PAHA's 2016 Creative Arts Prize for my two books of poems inspired by WWII experiences of Polish civilians and children.